March 18 2003

By Robert Avila

AMONG THE NUNS of Ursula: Fear of the Estuary, the titular Ursula (Tori Hinkle) is unique. Not only is she smart and fiercely independent – who else could tease and even prod the Mother Superior (Matt Leshinskie)? – but she also has an exceptional head of fine blond hair. Everyone loves Ursula and/or wants her and/or wants to be her. She's special. So much so that Christ himself intervenes in her betrothal to megalomaniac prince Lucas (Charlie Reave) and makes Ursula his own, ensuring that she will remain chaste and that her earthly lord will have her slaughtered along with her virginal entourage.

The martyrdom of Saint Ursula, less than history but more than myth, is ideal terrain for British avant-garde playwright Howard Barker and his convention-bashing "theater of catastrophe," his term for a radical assault on a numbingly conformist establishment; the style is deliberately mysterious yet poetically precise. Barker's idiosyncratic dialogue displays an economy of words that is inextricably theatrical – leaping naked from the river and into a soliloquy on the advantages of marriage, Lucas shouts, "Chuck us a bride, I'm frozen!" Like the estuary that forms the metaphoric bridge and divide between this solitary man and the female ocean, Barker's bodacious, hilarious, painful, and ultimately tragic work churns ideas and images in crosscurrents of passions.

Though Barker is prolific, his work is rarely staged in America. In this regard the pairing with Last Planet Theatre is a kind of offstage match made in heaven – the company gives Ursula a robust and lavishly detailed Bay Area premiere. Director John Wilkins proves he's at home in Barker's world with a production that compliments the playwright's sensibilities while giving the play a puckish personality of its own – seen, for instance, in the childish nuns led by Mother Placida, who tend to line and pile up against her back like ducklings and struggle to even mouth the alien word marriage.

James Flair and Paul Rasmussen's set design exploits a vast stage with a beautifully blue estuary of undulating fabric, interrupted by an enormous looming image of, varyingly, an eye or a pair of lips. Michael Ditmore's elegant lighting, Andrew Jones's hip sound design, and Horace Ray's serendipitous costuming further enhance a style that seems to cross pop art with 16th-century mannerism.

As Ursula, Hinkle is a commanding, heroically petulant princess of heaven with a strong American accent. Leshinskie's broadly comic drag nun shows no fear exploring elements that may lurk between the lines, and Sarah Neal is compelling as dingy, unvirginal waif Leonora, whose comic-pathetic blindness is on-again, off-again. Reave deserves special praise for measuring his ferocious energy with a fine intelligence, frequently without benefit of costume. (Even Christ worked with a loincloth.) The cavernous SomArts Cultural Center can swallow whole characters, much less a few lines, and the fast and furious delivery adds another challenge; the cast meets this and others head-on. They prove more than a match for a play whose waters are bracingly inviting.

Party of one

Actor L. Peter Callender has no problem commanding the biggest stages in the Bay Area. He's a talented, graceful, and muscular performer, and the chance to see him in a stripped-down three-person, one-act production of Shakespeare's Richard III in the intimate confines of the Thick House was loaded with possibility.

Would that the production – fast-paced though it was – could keep up with him. Director Tony Kelly's 100-minute adaptation of the dastardly Duke of Gloucester's bloody, inexorable rise to the throne condenses characters and plot while giving Callender free rein to prowl the stage. He courts the audience with a fiendish energy, but he has to do nearly all of the heavy lifting. Though Selana Allen is solid as the lamenting Queen Elizabeth, as is Rodrigo Breton as Richard's brother, each appears in multiple roles – and neither actor can consistently engage Callender. The problem is more than just imbalance; Callendar's climactic scene is diffuse, out of focus, lost somewhere in the mists between three as company and three as crowd.

Rick Martin's mod '60s set, replete with cool jazz, Plexiglas walls, and fluorescent beams, and the turtlenecks and tapered suits created by Kim Curtis, offer a retro look and a few comedic opportunities (as when Richard celebrates an early victory by joyously busting a few go-go moves). Still, their work feels at best only halfway integrated into a conceptual whole. Other elements simply don't come across – for example, the haunting voice of the late Queen Margaret (Margo Hall), distorted almost beyond recognition by the sound system.

Callender's performance is electric at times, and Richard – often called Shakespeare's perfect villain ("He has no friends but that are friends for fear") – is an unforgettable character. "Our strong arm be our conscience," he says, rallying his troops, "our sword our law!" Plucking dark humor and timeless wisdom from the insatiable maw of power, Shakespeare's coruscating play brings an unsettlingly urgent answer to Hastings's question "What news, in this our tottering State?"

'Ursula: Fear of the Estuary' runs Thurs/20-Sat/22, 8 p.m.; Sun/23, 7 p.m., SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, S.F. $12-$15. (510) 845-2687.